MTN offers a whopping US$7,8bn for Djezzy

EGYPTY’S mobile cellular giant, Orascom has confirmed talks with MTN aimed at taking over its Algerian unit, Djezzy, an official confirmed.

If the MTN, Orascom Group negotiations reach fruition, then MTN has still another hurdle in facing Algeria’s government laws which stipulate that any foreign company wishing to invest in their country should cede a 51% stake to the locals.

Orascom Telecom Executive Chairman, Naguib Sawiris, confirmed that MTN is ready to part with a whopping US$7,8bn (about R60 billion) for Djezzy.

Djezzy is Orascom’s most lucrative mobile company in the north-west African nation.

The Orascom boss said he pinned his hopes of a deal sailing through on the basis that the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarack and his Algerian counter-part president Abdelaziz Bouteflika would discuss issued around the deal.

AHMED MOOSA in Cairo, Egypt